Our #eduread chat over Brown’s Make It Stick leaves my mind spinning each time. So many ideas to process. It can be overwhelming. It makes me wonder… How often do our students get overwhelmed after a day of learning in multiple classrooms?
The idea of interleaving practice – whether in class or as homework has been a big part of discussion. For me, I have never been a fan of 20 or so practice problems. I never knew why really until I read this book. My plan is to be intentional in practice, interleaving some review topics in on each assignment. I appreciate Steve Leinwand’s structure of 2-4-2. 2 new practice, 4 review practice and 2 open ended questions. Depending on the course, this may look a bit different. But very doable for me. I definitely like the idea of mixing new with old.
While on Pinterest, I saw an idea about using address labels to print Reading Response Questions for a Novel study.
Either with address labels or on regular copies, what if I made a 5 questions HW assignment. Say 4 different sets of these – will color code or use symbols to designate different sets. Each set has 2 new practice problem and 2 review practice problem and 1 open ended question.
After completing the work, students will also be asked to reflect over their work briefly and describe in writing:
- a. which new and which review problems are most alike? explain.
- b. which new and which review problems are most different? explain.
- c. which was easiest? most difficult?
When entering class, they will see instructions to pair up with someone with a different set of problems, maybe reds with blues or yellows with greens, etc.
- Each person will work 1 new problem and the open-ended question from their partner’s set.
- They will compare/check their work / solutions.
- Finally, they will share their written responses from the previous night’s written reflection.
- As a class, we will then share from our comparisons.
This structure would allow us to achieve a few goals:
- Retrieval practice from previous day’s work.
- Peer assessment with comparison and discussion of classmates work.
- Time for reflection and sharing.
This HW / warm up routine would not be used on a daily basis but I think once a week or at least every other week would be beneficial.
the radical rational... 
Good Morning,
I appreciate your sharing.
This may be silly of me but do address labels come in different sizes so 5 problems fit? Do you type them on the strip?
Also, does everyone have the same 5 questions and is the label placed on their paper by you?
The concept saves paper and looks very neat on their paper.
Thank you for your help.
this post was more or less me thinking…how could I do…? for math, not likely that 5 problems would fit, would likely be just a sheet of paper that has 3 or 4 different sets of similar problems on it, cut apart and pass out to students. My initial thinking was to pair students up with someone who completed a different set, so they could peer assess and discuss
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